Postgame brawl mars Chiefs statement win, running back has historic revenge game against Cowboys: NFL Week 6 Sunday review
By Ben Morse, CNN
(CNN) — Week 6 has been one of the most exciting this NFL season so far, with plenty of close finishes across the league.
With two still to come on Monday, eight games so far have been within one score in the fourth quarter and six contests have been decided by one score, including two which ended with a game-winning score in the final minute.
The day started with the Denver Broncos winning a defensive slugfest against the Jets in London, still leaving New York as the only winless team in the NFL.
Here’s everything you need to know from Sunday’s action in Week 6 of the 2025 NFL season.
Postgame brawl mars Chiefs statement win
Sunday Night Football was seen as a marquee matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs hosting the high-powered Detroit Lions.
But despite it ending with the Chiefs getting back on track and recording a statement 30-17 victory, a postgame brawl between stars on both teams marred Kansas City’s celebrations.
Immediately after the Chiefs knelt on the final play of the game to wrap up the win, Detroit safety Brian Branch was seen rejecting a handshake from Patrick Mahomes and approaching Kansas City wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster.
Branch then proceeded to strike Smith-Schuster on the front of the helmet with an open-handed blow, sending the receiver to the ground.
Smith-Schuster got up from the turf to chase after Branch, with the Lions player grabbing Smith-Schuster’s facemask and throwing him to the ground, with the two needing to be separated as they came to further blows.
After the game, Branch apologized for his actions and said that he reacted the way he did because Smith-Schuster had hit him in the back late in the game, which he thought was illegal.
“I did a real childish thing,” Branch told reporters. “I’m tired of people doing stuff in between plays and refs don’t catch it. They be trying to bully me out there. I shouldn’t have did it, it was childish.”
The 23-year-old added: “I got blocked in the back illegally. And it was in front of the ref and the ref didn’t do anything and just stuff like that. I could have got hurt off of that, but I still should not have done that.”
Detroit head coach Dan Campbell began his postgame press conference by addressing the incident.
“Let me start with this,” Campbell said. “I love Brian Branch, but what he did is inexcusable and it’s not going to be accepted here. It’s not what we do, it’s not what we’re about. I apologized to (Chiefs) coach (Andy) Reid and the Chiefs and (Smith) Schuster. That’s not OK. That’s not what we do here, and it’s not gonna be OK. He knows it, our team knows it. That’s not what we do.”
Branch could face punishment from the NFL for his actions – Branch has been fined by the league 10 times since the start of last season: seven last year and three this campaign.
The postgame incident came after the Chiefs’ most impressive win of the season – one which saw the offense get back on track.
Mahomes threw 22-of-30 for 257 yards and had four total touchdowns – three passing scores and one on the ground – and Kansas City had 112 rushing yards as a team.
Conversely, the Chiefs defense was able to slow down the typically proficient Lions offense, holding them to just 98 yards on the ground and Detroit QB Jared Goff to 203 passing yards.
The Lions fall to 4-2 with the defeat while the Chiefs continue to correct their stuttering start to the year by improving to 3-3.
Running back has historic revenge game against Cowboys
Every player has a little added motivation when they face their former team. And Rico Dowdle showed the Dallas Cowboys what they were missing when he faced them on Sunday as a part of the Carolina Panthers.
Dowdle had 239 yards from scrimmage against the Cowboys, rushing for 183 yards off 30 carries and racking up 56 yards and a touchdown through the air.
What made it even sweeter for the 27-year-old was it all came in a winning effort for Carolina, with rookie Ryan Fitzgerald kicking a 33-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Panthers over the Cowboys 30-27.
Dowdle had warned his former Dallas teammates that they’d better be prepared to face him and said afterwards that they didn’t heed his warning.
“They wasn’t buckled up,” Dowdle said.
This is Dowdle’s first season in Carolina having spent his first four seasons in the league with the Cowboys. In the 2024 season with Dallas, he ran for 1,079 yards but left the team in the offseason.
Sunday’s big performance was Dowdle’s second monster outing in a row having recorded 234 total yards and a touchdown in Week 5.
His 473 yards from scrimmage over the past two weeks are a Carolina franchise record and he became the sixth running back in the Super Bowl era with at least 225 scrimmage yards and a touchdown in consecutive games, joining Dalvin Cook, Le’Veon Bell, Deuce McAllister, Marshall Faulk and Walter Payton.
“It was personal for him and we knew that. We want to have his back,” Panthers quarterback Bryce Young said afterwards when asked about Dowdle playing his former team. “That’s our brother and if it’s important to him and it’s personal to him, it’s important to us.”
49ers lose another big star to season-ending injury
One team every season appears to be bitten by the injury bug. And this campaign, it appears to be the San Francisco 49ers.
The Niners lost another key player to injury during Sunday’s 30-19 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when linebacker Fred Warner was carted off the field.
TV coverage showed Warner’s ankle twisting awkwardly when a teammate inadvertently fell on it during the first quarter at Raymond James Stadium, with the 28-year-old being carted off the field shortly afterwards.
After the game, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan announced that Warner had suffered a dislocated and broken ankle. Shanahan said that the four-time first-team All-Pro will undergo surgery and miss the rest of the season
It’s a big blow for the 49ers to lose the linebacker, especially with the already lengthy injury list the team has.
The team’s defense has already lost star pass rusher Nick Bosa for the season due to a torn ACL. The offense has also been depleted, with quarterback Brock Purdy, tight end George Kittle and receiver Ricky Pearsall all missing multiple games.
Warner’s injury was the main talking point from the Niners’ second defeat of the season. But the continued excellence of Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield was also on display on Sunday.
Mayfield, who is in the early running for the Most Valuable Player award, put in another assured performance, despite Tampa Bay’s own lengthening injury list.
The Bucs were already without receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but they lost star rookie Emeka Egbuka midway through the second half to an apparent hamstring injury.
It didn’t matter to Mayfield though, as he consistently sliced through the 49ers defense. The 30-year-old ended the game throwing 17-of-23 for 256 yards and two touchdowns. Tampa Bay’s running backs Rachaad White and Sean Tucker, meanwhile, each had a touchdown run.
Mayfield’s resiliency this season was highlighted in the third quarter when he looked like he was going to be sacked on a key third down, only to shrug off a group of defenders, rumble downfield and stretch for a first down. The eight-year veteran QB was serenaded with MVP chants from the Bucs faithful in attendance.
“I was in disbelief just like everybody else,” Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles said of the moment. “It happens every other week or so and he makes those type of plays and you pray he doesn’t get hurt or anything happens to him. But he has a knack. He has a knack that you can’t teach or coach.”
The victory improved the Bucs to 5-1 as they move atop the NFC standings and look increasingly like a Super Bowl contender.
Full Week 6 Sunday scores
Home vs. away (winners in bold)
New York Jets 11-13 Denver Broncos (in London, UK)
Baltimore Ravens 3-17 Los Angeles Rams
Carolina Panthers 30-27 Dallas Cowboys
Indianapolis Colts 31-27 Arizona Cardinals
Jacksonville Jaguars 12-20 Seattle Seahawks
Miami Dolphins 27-29 Los Angeles Chargers
Pittsburgh Steelers 23-9 Cleveland Browns
New Orleans Saints 19-25 New England Patriots
Las Vegas Raiders 20-10 Tennessee Titans
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30-19 San Francisco 49ers
Green Bay Packers 27-18 Cincinnati Bengals
Kansas City Chiefs 30-17 Detroit Lions
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